Loneliness, Memory, and Trauma

The CTI will host Professor Flavio Williges (UFSM, Brazil) & Dr Robert A Davies (University of York, UK)

the speakers will give a short presentation, followed by plenty of time for questions, discussion, and shared reflection. Loneliness is seen as a form of emotional suffering arising from the absence of meaningful social engagement and interpersonal connection (e.g., emotional intimacy, sociability). This view rightly highlights important interpersonal dimensions of loneliness, but overlooks deeper and structurally disruptive forms of loneliness. We examine loneliness in trauma – particularly interpersonal trauma – drawing attention to two well-documented consequences of trauma: (i) the collapse of basic trust; (ii) the experience of intrusive memory symptoms. We argue that the fracturing of trust in post-traumatic loneliness is related to distressing memory experiences with distinctive characteristics. These include the disruption of ecognitional capacities, which leads to misattributions of sources of danger or threat (Davies, forthcoming). Persistent misrecognitions impa…